Does Social Media Matter?

Just wanted to ask that question, because it’s timely to me for two reasons:

A. I just returned from BlogWorld Expo

and

B. Justin Kownacki wrote this post entitled, When Social Media Will REALLY Matter where he asks where the real change has come from since social media has been around.

side note ~ I toyed with the idea of copying and pasting Justin’s entire post on my blog and trying to pass it off as my own, but thought better of it after reading this post of his…

All kidding aside, I love Justin’s post and think that he is right on. I have been keeping track of the “John Mackey Situation” after he incited a large portion of his Whole Foods customer demographic with his ideas on health care reform.

For a quick update of that ongoing saga: organic food has grown to make up a whopping 3% of total U.S. food sales and the Whole Foods stock hit another 52-week high this month…

In essence, people made a big deal about a blog post and nothing happened.

So Ask Yourself The Question

I think it’s a legitimate question that we should all be asking ourselves:

Does social media matter?

if it does matter Then show me the counterpoint to the point of Justin’s post. Where has social media made a real change in society that was previously untouchable? I know that social media has made a lot of small differences, but where is a big one that could not have been made without the use of social media?

if it doesn’t matter Then how do we make it matter? How do we utilize social tools on-line to band together and truly make a large positive impact in this world?

What Do You Think?

Isn’t real change what we all want, anyway? Isn’t that what this is all about? Please let me know what you think in the comments below. I’m really into this debate… it needs to be debated.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Whole Foods Boycott on Facebook Swells to 22,000 Users (mashable.com)
• Wonder Why CEOs Don’t Blog? This Is Why (mizzinformation.com)
• Who Does Boycotting Whole Foods Help? (takepart.com)